The French Chronicles

“What should I say to those who follow me on Facebook ? Buy Chianti wine?”

The revolt of the French wine bloggers

The cover image you see has been used in the information campaign launched by Vin et Société against the rules that might be approved in France, providing a number of restrictions to the wine sector and to its communication.

According to a report entitled “Strategies to reduce the damages from alcoholism”, it is suggested to the government to ban any online activity of promotion and communication about wine, while there is no reference to the mainstream press. So, basically, goodbye to wine blogs (like ours!)

Not surprisingly, wine bloggers and other professionals in the field activated themselves and created a website by the unutterable name cequivavraimentsaoulerlesfrancais, effectively listing many good reasons to oppose this set of rules.

.. And the proposals of Senator Courteau

On the opposite side but still in the Grandeur, the socialist senator Roland Courteau proposed a bill to the Parliament of Paris in order to “make it clear that wine is an integral part of the cultural and gastronomic heritage of France.” Viticulture is, in fact, the first economic activity in the Aude, the French department where Courteau has been elected.

Wine, in the proposer’s view, is part of the national food culture of France, which is also “inscribed in the UNESCO list of intangible heritage of humanity“. The law aims to recognize the value of the wine on the cultural level as well as on the economic and financial one. Viticulture is, in fact, an essential element of the French trade balance and it concerns, directly and indirectly, hundreds of thousands of jobs.

As far as health-conscious laws are concerned, Senator Courteau said that they “generate confusion between the need to combat alcohol for the protection of public health and the benefits due to a moderate consumption of wine.”